


i'll be as honest as you let me

by a_miiraculer, clairelutra (exosolarmoon)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Introspection, Sort Of, you get someone's symbol whenever you fall in love with them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 05:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13288173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_miiraculer/pseuds/a_miiraculer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra
Summary: Whenever someone falls in love, they get their love's soulmark.Marinette had been waiting for Adrien's since that fateful rainy day.





	i'll be as honest as you let me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LuckOfADraw (Mirime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirime/gifts).



Whenever someone falls in love, they get their love's soulmark.

Marinette had been waiting for Adrien's since that fateful rainy day.

It was normal, her parents had told her, to have to wait a bit for it to show up. Sometimes the skin was just slow. Sometimes the mark blossomed somewhere strange or hard to see. Sometimes you had to get to know a person a little better before it could really blossom.

Sometimes it just... wasn't meant to be.

Marinette wasn't worried about the last—her heart was always and forever _Adrien's_ , no matter if she could find his mark or not—but still she stared at herself down in the mirror every morning, had gotten Alya to check the places she couldn't herself, and had even looked up to see if you could get a soulmark on your internal organs or something.

(You couldn't, as far as science and religion could tell—and Adrien's fanclub had later proven that _his_ mark was a star on the right cheek—but she still wondered.)

It just... _bit._ Sabrina had a bee on her nape. Nath had a delicate spray of pink flowers on the inside of his wrist. Mylene had a whole sleeve that looked like Stoneheart's rocks, and Ivan's _hair_ had started growing in in a rainbow of colors shortly after the two of them had started dating.

That Marinette had held Adrien so _close_ to her heart for longer than any of them and _still_ couldn't see him on her skin just... hurt. A little bit.

Well. She was sure it would come in soon. One day she was going to wake up with a pale star on her cheek, just like the most devoted of fans had. She _would._

It was with this thought that she stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom. She'd woken up late—patrol had run late, it happened sometimes—and it was best to hurry. With any luck, her mother would have something she could eat as she walked, but before that, Marinette _really_ needed a shower.

She was still half awake when she got to the mirror, and then she peered into it.

And then she was very, very alert.

Some asshole had painted her face _black_ while she slept.

Or, no, not her whole face, she realized as she blinked the rest of her sleep away. Just the top half. It ended in a smooth line over her cheekbones and a little point over the tip of her nose. Lifting her hair revealed that it ended at her hairline—the skin beyond was its normal faint pink.

It was an asshole move, she thought, whoever had done it.

Except it didn't wash off.

No matter how many times she washed her face, the water didn't turn so much as a faint grey. She washed and washed and washed until her skin felt raw and achy, and the top half of her face was as inky black as when she'd started.

It looked... an awful lot like Chat's mask, she started to realize between the fifth and sixth attempts.

She had to give up after the seventh for fear of actually damaging her skin, and was left to stare, terrified and empty and hopeless, at what was almost definitely a soulmark.

No. No, no, no, _no._

She refused.

She loved _Adrien._

She just _refused._

* * *

(In the end, there was nothing to do but go to school like that. Out of all the implications and consequences of waking up with _Chat Noir's soulmark_ on her face—the surprise, the gentle teasing, the congratulations—the look of pure shock on Adrien's was the worst.

The only mercy was that her own mask covered it up when she transformed. She didn't know what she'd do if _he_ knew.)

**Author's Note:**

> Adrien, rigorously applying layer after layer of coverup to his red-masked face that morning: Man wouldn't it be wild if my soulmark was a Chat mask? hahaha
> 
> also:  
> \- all heroes gain a second mark after they're chosen.  
> \- adrien's soulmark isn't actually a star, it's a green cat on the breastbone.  
> \- it's a cause of confusion for more than a few of his fans, but not really talked about because none of them want to show weakness.  
> \- the star thing came about from some young fan wanting to prove she loved adrien the most out of her circle of friends online and then it went viral.  
> \- there's a green kitty on chloe's chest that she refuses to acknowledge. not even sabrina knows about it.  
> \- adrien has no idea his soulmark isn't a star.  
> \- adrien has exactly no idea how to react to seeing his mask on marinette's face.  
> \- the trigger for the mark appearing happened the night before the fic, when ladybug wondered aloud what her soulmark was, and chat told her it was her mask, nbd.  
> \- marinette is still frantically trying to repress that, as she does.  
> \- i probably could have written this into the fic instead of in bullet points in the end notes, but i am but a mortal soul, half dead and apologetic.  
> \- sorry, btw.
> 
> EDIT: ~~because people are asking and idk how many read the comments~~  
>  \- mari doesn't have a green cat on her breastbone. despite her best attempts, she still doesn't know adrien very well.  
>  \- the adri-fans that *do* have the cat are the ones mature enough to connect the dots and hypothesize adrien's personality as something very close to what it actually is—mari's judgement is too clouded to make the same connections.  
> \- there actually _are_ other people with lb/cn masks (which they got in the same way that those adri-fans got their kitties), but those, ironically, are thought to be fake—just chosen expressions of devoted fandom, rather than actual soulmarks  
>  \- marks fade when the person's _impact_ fades  
>  \- if you flip right from love to obsessive hate, the mark won't dull a bit.  
>  \- if someone isn't what you thought them to be, you won't have their soulmark in the first place  
>  \- if you lose someone due to differences or death or what-have-you, the mark will stay as bright as their presence in your heart (as cheesy as that sounds)—so your high-school sweetheart might only be a faint outline, while your divorced spouse is about half as bright as it started out and your new love is at full strength  
>  \- soulmarks never, ever disappear completely—but they do have to be sparked by real, honest, selfless love  
> \- adrien doesn't know mari well enough for her mark to appear on him for a while yet  
> \- soulmarks are not exclusive to your One True Love, they're just physical evidence that you fell in love, once  
> \- that love doesn't necessarily _have_ to be romantic, but it usually is  
>  \- it doesn't really matter whether you acknowledge that love—as seen in mari's case—but the care has to be there  
> \- along with stimulants and alcohol, a way to cover up or fake in/convenient soulmarks have been staples of nearly every culture since the dawn of time
> 
> \- alya confirms that marinette's mark is actually a soulmark, and their whole class is collectively... very bemused  
> \- adrien goes on to try to figure out how the everloving _fuck_ this girl he's barely talked to managed to fall in love with him  
>  \- marinette is awkward and guilty and avoids both adrien and chat like the plague in her civilian identity  
> \- ladybug guiltily starts letting chat in, sitting in the knowledge that  
>  a) they have each other's soulmarks  
>  b) she's the only one who knows that  
>  while chat rambles on about this girl he knows who got his soulmark and how awkward and guilty he is around her for not loving her back  
> \- ladybug realizes she must know him irl  
> \- aaaand i have no idea where or how to end this  
> \- kisses and reveals, preferably  
> \- sorry.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Heart-to-Soul Revelations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16637909) by [ReaperOfAngels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperOfAngels/pseuds/ReaperOfAngels)




End file.
